For years his films have been revered as painful explorations of the human psyche, imitated by directors from Woody Allen to Wes Craven, and parodied mercilessly for their sepulchral tone. Now even Ingmar Bergman has admitted that watching his notoriously bleak movies — which earned him the nickname ”the gloomy Swede” — makes him miserable.
In a rare interview, the reclusive director discussed the demons that haunt him and drive his work, including ”fear, rage, laziness, control, boredom”.
”I don’t watch my own films very often. I become so jittery and ready to cry … and miserable. I think it’s awful,” he said.
Bergman (85) described his troubled childhood, which was scarred by his parents’ unhappy marriage and the strictness of his father, a Lutheran pastor prone to outbursts of rage.
In the one-hour documentary, screened by the Swedish television network SVT this week, he admitted that his fear of mortality gave birth to masterpieces such as The Seventh Seal, with its famous and much-spoofed scene in which a knight plays chess with Death.
The interview was filmed at his home on Faaroe, a desolate island 160km south-east of Stockholm, where he lives alone. He has been divorced four times and widowed once.
Bergman, who suffered a nervous breakdown in the late 1970s, now regulates his life precisely: taking a walk after breakfast, writing for three hours, having lunch and reading in the afternoon.
”Demons don’t like fresh air — they prefer it if you stay in bed with cold feet,” he joked, adding more seriously: ”[For] a person who is as chaotic as me, who struggles to be in control, it is an absolute necessity to follow these rules and routines.
”If I let myself go, nothing will get done.”
The director admitted that there were days when he spoke to no one, but he insisted that he was never lonely, despite his isolation.
”There is something joyous about not talking,” he observed.
To paraphrase PG Wodehouse, it has never been difficult to distinguish between a Swede with an existential crisis and a ray of sunshine. Bergman’s many films are renowned for their pessimism.
”Love is the blackest of all plagues,” cries one character in The Seventh Seal, while another asks: ”Between you and me, isn’t life a dirty mess?”
Yet directors as diverse as Robert Altman, Paul Verhoeven and even Craven — whose horror movie The Last House on the Left was adapted from Bergman’s The Virgin Spring — have drawn inspiration from his work.
”I think he’s influenced everybody. What he did more than anybody was to show how deeply you can penetrate into the human spirit on film,” said John Boorman, who has admired Bergman’s work since watching The Seventh Seal as an 18-year-old.
”People say he has no sense of humour, but look at pictures like Smiles of a Summer Night, which are full of the most wonderful humour.
”There was a point when his films did get somewhat gloomy and quite repetitive. But his last films are about families and family relationships, and those have been fantastic.
”He has a pessimistic view of human nature, but there are also his wonderful insights. The new film he has made is supposed to be wonderful,” Boorman added.
Saraband, a made-for-television movie, has not yet been released in the UK.
The critic Roger Ebert has also argued that Bergman’s decreasing popularity reflects the superficiality of modern cinema, rather than any weakness in the director.
Fans should brace themselves for disappointment if they watch the interview, however. Its most shocking moment may be Bergman’s burst of laughter as he recalls bingeing on champagne after receiving the French Legion of Honour in 1985.
”When we came out from the Elysée Palace there was a gigantic limousine waiting for us and four police on motorcycles,” he said.
”It is probably one of the few times I have experienced my fame. I thought it was so fantastic that I laughed to the point of shouting. I laughed so that I fell over on the floor of this big car.”
The following day was ”probably the only time in my life I have showed up hung over — not just hung over, I was simply intoxicated — to a rehearsal”, he admitted.
The three-times Oscar winner also used the interview to complain that the acclaim he receives has deterred his collaborators from offering honest criticism.
After Smiles of a Summer Night won the Grand Prix at the Cannes film festival in 1956, they were loath to tell him what they really thought, he said.
”There hasn’t been anyone with whom I can discuss my scripts,” he said. ”Even when the film is done, there is no one I can show it to who gives his sincere opinion. There is silence.”
”I can imagine that could well be the case,” Boorman said dryly. ”He’s quite an intimidating character.”
Nor was he surprised that Bergman hated to watch his films. ” I think most directors feel the same way. I know I do,” he said.
”When you finish a film, you never want to see it again.”
Four of the most bleak (and one that’s slightly cheerier)
The Seventh Seal (1957)
A disillusioned knight returns from the Crusades to find that the plague is stalking his homeland. He plays the grim reaper at chess. Death wins.
Winter Light (1963)
A village pastor has lost his faith and cannot communicate with his mistress, a schoolteacher tormented by eczema. He fails to help a fisherman terrified of nuclear warfare. The man promptly kills himself.
Cries and Whispers (1972)
A terminally ill woman slowly dies of cancer, receiving no comfort from her sisters. Then again, one of them is suicidal.
From the Life of the Marionettes (1980)
A suicidal businessman battles feelings of sexual inadequacy and rage towards his wife. Apparently he does not succeed, since he brutally rapes and murders a prostitute.
Smiles of a Summer Night (1955)
A romcom with aspects of French farce. One critic said: ”A comedy about the failure of comedy to fulfil its promise of cathartically laughing away the horror and absurdity of human emotions.” It’s not Notting Hill. – Guardian Unlimited Â